Engineered Software, Inc. Celebrates 25 Years

Lacey, WA, May 11, 2007 --(PR.com)-- With over 25 years of success and offering more than ten software products and services, Engineered Software, Inc. is celebrating its Silver Anniversary. Engineered Software, Inc. continues to be the industry’s leading provider of software used to design and simulate the operation of fluid piping systems. In 1982, Engineered Software started creating engineer tested and approved software before personal computers were a commonality. The company’s flagship product soon became the world’s first and most widely used Window’s® based fluid flow analysis software.

To celebrate, the company has grown ever larger, building and moving into a new corporate headquarters. The new Engineered Software Headquarters boasts 72% more space, more than doubling in size. The company has increased personnel by over 50%, adding new engineers, programmers, testers, and territory representatives, all to improve service for their customers.

“It’s exciting to be part of a company where you can be proud of the product you produce,” said Zac Vawter, V.P of Programming at Engineered Software. “The great people who work here is the reason this company is such a great success.”

Engineered Software threw a party celebrating the quarter decade of ongoing growth, with an anniversary surprise for their employees. The company’s history was presented and original promotional items were on display. Even the first computer the program was written on was on display. The original computer was an Osborne OS-1, and at only $1,995 (in 1982 dollars), it boasted a Z-80, 8 bit 2 MHz processor with 64Kbytes of memory, two 5.25” floppy drives, and a built in monitor.

“With the right coaxing and finesseing, the computer still works,” said Carolyn Popp, President and Chief Technical Officer for Engineered Software, the computer’s original owner. “It’s in pretty good shape considering it’s age. What’s available now for computers is so much more user friendly.”

The company founders, Carolyn Popp and Ray Hardee both agreed it was time to share the company’s beginnings with the rest of the organization. The marketing materials, yellowing newspaper clippings and dated brochures are planned for display in the company’s lobby, along with the old Osborne OS-1 computer.

“It’s a part of our history, and people need to see where we have been to see how far we have come,” said Popp. “It reminds everyone here that we’re on one big team and working together towards the future. We’re getting big enough now that sometimes the company needs that reconnection,” she said.

Engineered Software designs software programs with engineers in mind. The programs are designed by collaboration between computer programmers and engineers so the end product is something that is efficient and functional. Taking cues from their customers, the company comes out with new features for their programs every one to two years. In fact, this attention to their customers has kept their customers coming back year after year. The first PIPE-FLO program sold to a customer in 1983 and they are still a customer today.

“Our customers keep coming back because we are reliable, and we have reliable software. They never worry about whether the program will work and with every new version we provide features our customers asked for, it’s a symbiotic relationship,” said Ray Hardee, CEO and Chief Engineer at Engineered Software. “We both have something to gain from working together.”

How it All Began

It all started on a cold night in 1978. Engineer Ray Hardee was sitting at his desk on the night shift, conducting nuclear startup with Ebasco, working with a new TI programmable calculator. Hardee had just finished creating and entering a program for calculating a headloss for a single pipeline, something he did quite often. Once finished, he amazed at how quickly the basic program produced the answers. He still had to look up an intermediate result in the Mooney diagram in the Crane Technical Paper 410, but it was much faster and accurate.

Hardee’s only problem was when the calculator was turned off the program he created was erased. He had to manually enter the program each time he wanted to do a pressure drop calculation. Naturally, Hardee wondered to himself, “When will they make something that will keep the program?”

From there, Hardee and Popp started developing PIPE-FLO version 1, taking all the formulas in the Crane Technical Paper 410 and putting them on the computer. The first program had a set of tables for the pipe material, along with the valves and fittings; there was also fluid properties for water, with the ability to add your own fluids. The program was designed so you could create a piping system with 16 pipelines.

From this point on, programming functionality and an easy to use interface were the main priority. The company has always focused on creating a product that is powerful yet fail proof. The selection tool, now called PUMP-FLO developed out of a feature in PIPE-FLO where the user can select specific pumps from a manufacturer’s catalog of pumps and see how it works in their piping system.

PUMP-FLO is now available as a separate program used just for selecting pumps based on user defined criteria. The first pump manufacturer to lend their catalog to PIPE-FLO was in 1988 and today and there are over 75 pump manufacturer’s catalogs available for use in both programs. The web based version of PUMP-FLO, Pump-flo.com, now has over registered 100,000 users.

Starting in 2006, Engineered Software agreed to produce, market, sell and distribute worldwide Crane Valve North America’s Technical Paper No. 410: The Flow of Fluids through Valves, Fittings, and Pipe (TP410). TP410 is the industry standard technical guide for understanding the flow of fluid through valves, pipes and fittings. TP410 is mainly used by specifying engineers, designers and engineering students. The book has a companion product called Flow of Fluids, that is essentially a PIPE-FLO product used for designing smaller systems.

There are now seven different PIPE-FLO programs available based on the piping system design needs including: PIPE-FLO Professional for fluid piping systems, PIPE-FLO Stock for pulp and paper systems, PIPE-FLO Compressible for compressible gas systems, PIPE-FLO Overtime a simulation tool that simulates how your piping system operates over a period of time, PIPE-FLO Software Development Kit for application developers and programmers who want to develop other software programs for use with PIPE-FLO, and the PIPE-FLO Viewer for viewing piping system models created with the PIPE-FLO program.

Engineered Software continues its success as it broadens its range of products and service offered. Based on need or request, the company has strived to offer innovative products to the pump and piping system industries.

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About Engineered Software, Inc. – Founded in 1982, Engineered Software, Inc. has created products that are known worldwide for high end-user satisfaction rates. The company has two award-winning product lines – PIPE-FLO and PUMP-FLO Solutions. Recognized as the best in the industry, the programs’ interface was developed and refined based on over 25 years of customer feedback. Engineered Software is also the creator of Flow of Fluids Premium software, and holds an agreement with Crane Valve North America to produce, market and sell their Technical Paper, TP410. Engineered Software, Inc. has more than 5,500 clients worldwide across a variety of industries including aerospace and defense, chemical processing, engineering design and consulting, food and beverage, oil and petrochemical, mining and metals, pharmaceutical, power generation, pulp and paper, wastewater collection and treatment and education.